


an abstraction

by orphan_account



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Gen, Spoilers, after the end
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-08 13:19:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11647377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: (Post-game, spoilers.)He's still here. He doesn't understand.





	1. first

**Author's Note:**

> My take on an after-the-game AU. My tastes are weird so the story is weird. Chapters are short and updates are whenever I feel like it.
> 
> Edit: originally this was supposed to be a Saihara/Kiibo work but in the end it's not going to be, it just wasn't panning out. No romance.

There's a burst of white, and then nothing.

He wakes up miles away in darkness. His vision is blurry, his eyes gummed-up, stuck fast. He raises a hand to rub at them but something catches, something holds his arm fast against something hard, something cold. Thick, snaking tubes pressed up against his flesh, bound with wires. Panic, struggle. A droning alarm sounds and a green light blinks into his face (and doesn't stop). _Subject disconnected_. _Subject disconnected_.

What? Where was he? What was going on?

Then there's a sudden hiss of air (he flinches but he can't move away, his hair blown back against his face) and then he can see, finally. It's dim, but dim light is still light, and he can see the metal shell that had trapped him rising up in an eerie silence now, hanging overhead (it's enormous), can see where he is (though he doesn't know where, not yet), can see what he had thought of as tubes and wires were just simple black straps holding him down against what looks only like a chair, if a particularly hi-tech one, all gleam and shine. It reminds him of the chairs they had used for the simulation ( _what simulation?_ ). He pulls his arms back over his bonds, freeing himself, and rubs his face.

He can't remember anything.

If he really focuses on it, pushes past the rumbling headache, there's a wild jumble of things slamming against his brain, all screaming for him to _pay attention, remember me, don't forget_ \- colors, faces, sounds, a name, names ( _Saihara, Akamatsu, Iruma, Ouma, even more, even more than that_ ), the memory of something - painful, the feeling of ( _rushing air, a wild exhilaration rushing through him_ )flying, but he doesn't know what it means. There's too much, way too much.

He undoes the rest of the bonds and stands up, squinting into the darkness, feeling weak. _Where's my glasses_ , he thinks. _I'm hungry_ , he thinks. But he also doesn't really understand. Another part of him doesn't understand any of it at all. Why would he need glasses? Why would he be hungry? Why does he even know what it feels like to be hungry? He's never even experienced it before. But he has.

Why shouldn't he have? Isn't he human? _Is he?_


	2. second

They don't know the time.

The air is still now. The only sound the crunch of glass and rubble ground beneath their heels. As they walk, their cheer - we're alive, we've made it! - had muted. They hadn't spoken again. Something hangs between them. It begs for reassurance, " _I know we're going to be okay_ ," but no one says it. Their nervousness sits sharp, strong enough to smell. An acid stink.

The real world awaits, but there's little excitement.

Beyond the break the light is harsh, strong enough that their first instinct is to shield their eyes. They do. It's nothing like the light inside. Time stretches out like the path before them and it seems to take hours before they finally reach the jagged edges of the glass. In the march something new rises, growing heavier and heavier, weighing on them with every step. Everything ( _everyone_ ) they've left behind. There's a feeling in the air. If they stop now somehow they'll all rise from the dead, all rot and bones, reach through the earth (and isn't it funny how Kiibo had buried them as well as he had freed them, all of them except for him in pieces) and hold them down, drag them back. They break into a run, but it's unnecessary. They're almost there. They've made it.

It's enough that they almost want to leap through the gap but they don't. What would that accomplish, dying at the very end? Imagine.

Harukawa is the first out. Yumeno is the last.

They're outside now.

There's a few things they notice first. They notice that there's a breeze. It blows across their faces, lifts up their hair. The air is fresh. There's light. It's daytime.

Next they notice the crowd. A sea of cameras go off then, flash bright enough to blind.


	3. third

Against all expectations the room is small. Like a basement. It's cluttered, full of blurred shapes he squints at but can't quite make out, complicated heaps of what-looks-to-be (what he guesses to be) machinery (just as complicated, maybe even more so than the thing that had trapped him) and precarious towers of books and paper, but there's an organization to it, too. It's one that he finds himself following quite easily, almost by habit. Even as he struggles against the piles of junk his steps find themselves steady and sure.

The alarm repeats in the background, interspersed with tiny blinks of distant green. _Subject disconnected_. He ignores it. It's not hard. It's not loud. Definitely not loud enough to alert anyone. Who could it be for? Somehow he's not nervous.

At last he stumbles up against a wall. It's smooth. Dry. It leaves no clues. He palms against it blindly, hoping for a light switch or maybe even a door.

Nothing here. Might as well follow it.

He does.

It leads him to what feels like a door. At least it has a doorknob. He turns it, pulls it in, and it catches (a surge of panic) before he tries again, this time pushing it out. It opens. Embarrassment roils through his gut. What a time to worry about something like that.

The door opens out into a very normal set of stairs, made out of warm-hued wood. They look like something that belong in a house. Dim light filters down, not bright enough to be artificial. It must be daylight. He goes up the steps with some apprehension.

It _is_ a house. There's more open space up here but has the same furnishing as what must be (he realizes now) the basement. Here, at least, he can see it clearly (he can also see that he really does need glasses; everything is soft, out of focus). Mechanical odds and ends he can't recognize and papers are scattered everywhere, across every available surface. On the floor. On the furniture (and there's not much furniture; whoever lived here must not care much about comfort). The blinds are half-closed, letting in the light but blocking the view to the outside.

There's a computer in the corner on a desk. Stairs leading up somewhere. Something that looks like a kitchen further in, beyond the clutter. Something about it calls to him, draws him in. Oh.

He remembers that he's hungry.


	4. fourth

Ice clinks against the glass. He gulps the water greedily. He wipes his mouth, sets it down completely emptied. It leaves a bitter aftertaste. Almost metallic. He'd gotten it from the sink. It looked fine enough then, bubbles clinging to the sides. Clear.

He swallows down another handful of cereal, hardly even chewing. It's plain and dry but right now it is the best thing he's ever tasted. He's ravenous. He'd thrown open all the cupboards but they had been bare, one after another, until he'd finally found this and only this. A single sad box of wheat flakes, half-empty.

It sits heavy in his stomach. Thick bloated sludge.

When was the last time he'd eaten? (He can't remember. Can't remember ever eating.)

He breathes out heavy in the silence. He's full now, overfull. It catches up to him all at once and he's nauseated but after a moment it passes just as quick. For now.

He looks around. Takes in the surroundings. When he stumbled in he had been nearly frenzied by the hunger.

Empty open cabinets. A small refrigerator (he hears the electricity hum, it's on). He hadn't opened it. A stove and range but clean. So clean it looks unused. Not that he would know. He doesn't cook. He knows that.

There's the table in the center (the one he's standing at). It's clear. A single chair. Somehow the sprawl never reached this room, it seems. Everything is clean and clear.

There's a small table hidden away in the corner, covered in scattered envelopes. Mail. It fills him with a low sense of apprehension.

There's something wrong about the letters. He doesn't want to look at them.

But of course he does. There's actually not that many. He gathers them all together in a single sweep.

It's mundane, actually. Bills. Junk mail. Nothing special. But - the name - they're all addressed to the same person. A name he knows.

Iidabashi.

"...Professor?"


	5. fifth

"Professor? Professor!"

He repeats it, letters crumpled in his hands. He's shouting it now, nearly. He remembers. Iidabashi. The Professor.

The one who had **built** him.

Wait, what? His brain skips over the misinformation (because that's what it must be) breezily. That can't be right. Built? Where had that come from? Impossible. No. Professor Iidabashi is his **father**. It's the only thing that makes sense. And he's- confused (why, he can't seem to think straight, what's wrong with his head, why can't he-), to ward away the rising fear, he accepts it readily. There's bigger problems to tackle.

"Professor! Where are you? I'm here!"

He needs to find him. The Professor is frail, he knows. He needs him.

There's no response. No sound at all (besides that steady hum). His shouts echo out into the hall and fade away.

He looks at the empty drawers. That single box of cereal. But the water's on, the electricity's running. He looks down at the letters he's managed to crumple together into a wrinkled ball, unfolds them quick and rough. They're all old, dated maybe a month ago. What feels like it might be a month ago.

He realizes he doesn't know the date.

He doesn't know the house, either. The Professor must have lived here- why else all the mail? and all the things outside- and now he's here but how? When had he gotten here? Why was he here - why had he been in the basement? _Subject disconnected_. Had the Professor done something to him? Had something happened to the Professor...? He feels sick. Maybe it's the cereal again.

He drops the letters back on the table as he turns away. The first place he can think to go is back into the basement, but- no, not yet. He will, later, but now he'll go upstairs.


	6. sixth

It's all colorless. Stiff monochrome shapes move in jerky breaks, tinny voices drift in and out in static bursts like vintage radio.

Their eyes are glassy, staring up, away. All of them together here in thin white hospital gowns, but none of them _here_ , not now. The ceiling is a soft off-white. Nothing on the walls. Everything is smooth. Blank. No sharp edges. Safe.

There's no reaction from them (except, do you see?: a singular pair of eyes that blink alive, watching, wary) when the door opens, gently and quietly, and none when a woman steps through. She pulls it shut it behind her.

A doctor.

Her face is plain, forgettable. She wears a clean white coat. She might be the same one who saw them last time or someone else, someone entirely new. They won't remember. There hasn't been a shortage of doctors for them, not recently.

Nothing about this one stands out; except - around her neck - there's a lanyard. A badge hangs on it: white, black, and red. ' **TEAM DANGANRONPA** ', it proclaims in bright, poppy black-and-white. It can't help but draw your eyes. If nothing else (not that any of them believed it had nothing else), Danganronpa always knew how to make you look. Want to stare. Make it so you can't even tear your eyes away.

"How is everyone today?"

Her voice is calm and wavery. Gentle. Kind. The way she speaks to them is familiar, _you can trust me_ , she says, like she could be their mother. She waits.

There's no reply.

"That's fine," she smiles. "You've all been doing very well. I know it's a lot to take in."

"I'll see you all again tomorrow."

As she leaves, she winks. "And don't think I haven't noticed you, Saihara."

"...that's not my name."

He says it to the shut door. Bitterly.


	7. seventh

The landing is small. There's two doors. No pictures on the walls.

He opens the nearest one and finds himself in a small bedroom. Muted light filters in from a window on the wall, through flimsy curtains tightly drawn. There's a single bed with plain white sheets, neatly made.  A set of drawers. He pulls them open.

The contents are the same in every one. Sets of shirts and slacks, plain, simple, professional. Nothing else. Did someone really live here? There's nothing that shows any personality at all.

A thin coat of dust lies over everything. The air is still, stuffy. It feels just a bit too warm.

He moves the corner of the curtain to the side, just enough to look outside. He makes sure to stay out of the window's sight - not that it's necessary. There's no one else out there.

It's a normal residential street. Lots of other houses lined up and down in rows. The atmosphere is comfortable, quiet. Quaint. Sidewalks with springy grass and boxed trees with red leaves fallen on the ground all around. It must be autumn. Streetlights still-lit on the corners. Everything is orange. It's either dawn or dusk. He can't tell.

When he looks away there's a wild fear rising in his heart. At least he thinks it's fear. It's something ambivalent, so muddled and so strange. It could be anything, really. He doesn't know why. There's nothing strange about the view. He's never seen it before in his life.

He closes the door behind him when he leaves.

The other door leads to a bathroom. It's tiny. There's barely enough room for him to stand. A shower takes up the majority of the space (and even it is small). There's a sink counter with few toiletries (toothbrush, toothpaste, a hairbrush) dangling on the basin's edge. A toilet stuffed in the leftover space between.

There's a mirror, too. Set into the wall above the sink.

But when he looks into it the reflection is all wrong.


	8. eighth

They don't talk much. He tries (the only one who does) but if they don't talk to each other much they talk to him even less. He doesn't blame them. He understands. Harukawa - _but that's not her name either, is it?_ \- had come to his room the other day to apologize.

"You know - um - I'm sorry, Saihara." He doesn't bother to correct her.

She's not much like the girl he had known. She looks nearly the same, but, her personality - she's nervous, unable to keep still, shrunken in on herself, playing with her hair (it's loose now, cut much shorter). But there's other parts, the expressions, her mannerisms, the way she moves - they remain. It's striking. They give him pause. He wonders if he comes off the same way.

"You've been trying to keep us together, but-"

It's hopeless. They're not the same people. They don't even know each other's names.

Not that they've lost the memories. It's just that- they've been restored. Given back their real selves (not by their own choice, though if they could choose again to go back now - they wouldn't). The weight of it, the realness of it - it's hard to describe but - now they can see how flat the personas they had taken on had been, paper-thin. Most of them had been little more than mashups of worn stereotypes (the more things you add, the more unique, right?) layered onto themselves, magnified. They had become caricatures. The thinness of fiction compared to reality. He's disappointed in himself for ever believing in Danganronpa's characters. For ever thinking any of them could ever have been anything like real.

That's not to say it didn't happen. It was real. People really had died. They had murdered and were murdered, all of it broadcast live on television. And all of them had asked for it. They knew.

But it didn't really happen to _them_. The way they remember it now, it might as well have been a dream. Or a particularly interesting show (so interesting you remember all the details. Every single one. Like some crazed mega-fan).

"You can always watch it, if you'd like," their counselor had said cheerfully. "But, from past experience, we'd recommend against doing it this early on."

The memory restoration had been near-instant. Painless. It had hurt them in a different way. It left them lost, wavering between identities.

He tried to hold onto those memories. That strength of character. His conviction. But, faster than he can even believe, they had fallen away. Yeah. He might remember it but wasn't _him_. Might as well have been a game of play pretend. He can't make himself believe in principles he never really had in the first place.

It was different for Yumeno and Harukawa. Not that they were any more their characters in the end than him, but. Even though they had wanted to be on the show as much as he did, they didn't love it in the same way. He remembers. He knows every season of Danganronpa, every murder, every death. And more than that. All the characters, their likes, dislikes, heights, statistics, birthdays, blood type, relationships... anything there was to know, he knew. All of it. A crazy fan? _That's_ him.

But even though he wants to say Saihara's gone it's not entirely true. Being himself? It repulses him (it excites him). He's jealous. He's _happy_. It makes him sweat, hot and feverish, he's _so so happy_ knowing that he really was on Danganronpa, that he survived, he made it, and it makes him so disgusted with himself he wants to die. One particular memory holds strong in his mind, holds clearly him-as-Saihara; watching his own audition (and the reactions from everyone else). The hot-and-cold is sickening (and he likes that too).

Harukawa doesn't say any of this, but he understands.

"It's- that's okay, H-Harukawa." Since he doesn't know her real name. She makes no move to offer it. "I know it's been hard."


	9. ninth

Sharp blue eyes. White hair. That much is as expected. He brushes his fingers against the pale skin (so pale, almost white) of his cheek and his reflection does the same.  A soft touch. Cold fingers on cold skin. But then what was wrong?

He's so small and so thin. He was always short, but he never looked like this. He looks sick. As if he'd been sick for a very long time. Dark circles under his eyes speak of countless sleepness nights  and hollow cheeks explain his hunger. But, even though it mostly looks like him (if emaciated), something's still off, he knows there's more wrong. Subtle things he can't exactly name, minute variations in the shade of eyes and the structure of bone. The person in the mirror is not him.

The person in the mirror is not-

Before he can complete the thought, a phone rings.

-

"Professor Iidabashi?"

He'd rushed to it, almost tripping on his way there. He realized  - a bit late, as he picked up the phone - that maybe he oughtn't have answered, but by then the question had already come.

"Um- he isn't here," his voice wavers as he replies. "I'm sorry."

There's a pause on the line.

"Professor?" It repeats.

"He isn't here."

"We really need you to come in. I understand you must be busy, but-"

"Why don't you understand? Here's not here. I can't find him." There's panic in his words. An admittance of failure. He doesn't know what to do.

"Who is this?"

"It's... I'm..."

He hadn't thought about it, he realizes. But there's a name in his head, something definitely his. He seizes it, desperately.

"Kiibo."

There's silence on the line, then the muffled sound of background conversation, low and fast. He thinks about setting down the phone and running out of the house. But the voice comes back.

"Kiibo?"

"Yes,"

"You must be very confused right now."

Of course.

"We're going to send someone out to help you, is that alright? Can you stay where you are?"

Okay. Sure. He nods to the phone before realizing the person on the line can't see him. He understands it's not the best idea but he also understands that he understands nothing right now. Nothing at all.

"Okay."


End file.
